Wednesday, July 21, 2010

HERE COMES THE i-DOSE

I don’t know how true this story might be. Supplied by our pal Wendy, it does come from the somewhat hysterical Brit Daily Mail. I do recall however how – long ago when I was a real degenerate – the late Steve Took and I would crank up headphones to pain threshold and listen to “Sister Ray” by the Velvet Underground with similar in intent. We had, however, already primed ourselves with cheap whiskey and LSD.

“They put on their headphones, drape a hood over their head and drift off into the world of ‘digital highs’. Videos posted on YouTube show a young girl freaking out and leaping up in fear, a teenager shaking violently and a young boy in extreme distress. This is the world of ‘i-Dosing’, the new craze sweeping the internet in which teenagers used so-called ‘digital drugs’ to change their brains in the same way as real-life narcotics. They believe the repetitive drone-like music will give them a ‘high’ that takes them out of reality, only legally available and downloadable on the Internet. The craze has so far been popular among teenagers in the U.S. but given how easily available the videos are, it is just a matter of time before it catches on in Britain. Those who come up with the ‘doses’ claim different tracks mimic different sensations you can feel by taking drugs such as Ecstasy or smoking cannabis.”Click here for more.

No no no--if an Oklahoma school district is taking it seriously, you know it's for real.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/digital-drugs/

As I recall, this came out of a novel originally, and not a recent one. Maybe one of the early Gibson or Rucker works? It coincided with something about Frippertronics having this effect back in the Seventies or early Eighties, which is right for the Rucker/Gibson early period.